Forgiving the Unforgiveable
by CarlieD
Summary: Sequel to The Little Girl Who Saw Things. It’s been almost ten years since Jasper and Alice left the Cullens, leaving behind an unraveling family. But when they return, can the family ever learn to forgive each other?
1. Prologue

**Forgiving the Unforgiveable**

_Sequel to The Little Girl… It's been almost ten years since Jasper and Alice left the Cullens, leaving behind an unraveling family. But when they return, can the family ever learn to forgive each other?_

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So this is the much-begged-for sequel to The Little Girl Who Saw Things.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Cullens/Hales/Whitlocks/whoever they choose to be…

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Prologue – Coming Home

"Alice," I said softly as I entered the house. "Alice?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, her face furrowed in concentration as she watched something in her mind. She'd done this on a regular basis for the last few years – still watching the family's future, still looking for danger. I'd suggested that we go back, but she still refused. She said that she liked it being just the two of us for the moment. I knew better.

It hadn't been as good as I was hoping, to be away from the family, alone with Alice. Maybe it was just because of the circumstances surrounding our departure, but there always seemed to be the ever-present sadness.

Sighing, I knelt down in front of her, grabbing her hands to pull her out of the vision. "Lissy…" She came back to Earth, looking at me in surprise. "Are you sure you don't want to go back?" I asked again, knowing that she'd say the same thing that she said this morning when I had asked.

"No. I like it here with you," she replied. But there was a wistful expression in her eyes, a slight hint of longing in her emotions, a little uncertainty in her voice, which all told me a different story.

She missed them. She missed Esme, Edward, Bella, Emmett, Nessie, Rosalie and even the wolves. She just couldn't face Carlisle – she told me that she thought she was being ridiculously petty about the whole affair, but she just couldn't seem to get past her anger and her mistrust.

"Lissy, maybe we should go back. Just to visit, not necessarily to stay," I added quickly when she looked at me in exasperation. Maybe she'd change her mind once she was back home.

*~*~*

We knew exactly where to find them, even though they'd moved several times. She'd watched to make sure that Carlisle would be at work when we arrived.

The new house looked much like all the other houses we had lived in – clearly Esme's design. True to her vision, Carlisle's Mercedes was missing.

"Oh, my Porsche," Alice said, eyes lighting up as we caught a glimpse of a bright yellow car in the open garage. "They kept my Porsche…"

I could only laugh as I pulled into the front drive, shaking my head as the delight manifested itself.

She had barely gotten out of the car before Edward came dashing through the front door, unabashed excitement coming off him in waves. Bella wasn't far behind him, her excitement laced with hope.

Alice laughed, her own excitement and delight extremely obvious to me not only through her emotions, but on her face. She let Edward wrap her into a tight hug, delivering a quick kiss to his cheek, then gave Bella a tight hug as well.

"Oh, my _God_, Alice, I've missed you!" Bella squealed. "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Are you coming back for good now?"

"Oh. My. God," Rosalie's voice came from behind me. "Is that seriously an –"

" – XLR Special Platinum? Absolutely," I replied, turning around. Rosalie was busy eyeing my new car in appreciation. It didn't look as though anybody had gotten a new car: Edward's Volvo was parked in the drive, Rosalie's M3 in the garage, Emmett's Jeep around back…

"Mmm, I want one of those," she said to Emmett, who had appeared at her side. "Did they have it in red?" she asked me.

"We saw the new M9s, too," Alice spoke up, returning to my side. "Jasper decided he'd rather have the Cadillac."

"What's the 0-60 on this?" Emmett asked in interest.

Alice laughed as she settled back against me. "The dealer told us 5.2 seconds –"

"But I can make it go in 4," I finished with a satisfied grin.

"I _want_ one of these," Rosalie repeated.

"Check out the M9 before you say that," Alice advised.

"We're going car-shopping tonight," Rosalie said, turning to Emmett, who shrugged.

*~*~*

I was surprised at how very little time and effort it took everybody to include us into the family again. Nessie – now a tall, slender young adult with dancing brown eyes – was all but dancing around us all afternoon, chattering up a storm.

Esme had put us both in strangleholds when she'd realized we were here. The pain mingled with the joy and relief that she was feeling was enough to make me feel a little guilty. We'd punished the rest of the family for Carlisle's misdeed.

The hours seemed to pass without us noticing it at all, and it was only when Nessie yawned midway through another tale that we looked up and took notice of the setting sun.

"We should get going," Edward said quietly as Nessie rubbed her eyes subtly.

"Oh, don't go," Esme begged.

"Nessie can sleep on our bed," Emmett spoke up. Even Rosalie – _Rosalie_, of all people – was watching Edward's conflicted expression with a hint of anxiety. Finally, Edward nodded slightly and Nessie gratefully retreated upstairs.

I caught the brief hint of confusion from Alice as she turned to look at Bella. "Go where?" Alice asked in confusion.

"Home," Bella replied. "Edward and Carlisle aren't getting along very well."


	2. Impasses and Pleadings

**_Chapter 1: Impasses and Pleadings_**

The atmosphere in the room took an immediate turn for worse as soon as Bella said his name. Alice flinched slightly as she retreated back into my arms, the pain returning – I laid a reassuring kiss on top of her head. I could feel Esme's pain, Edward's anger. There was frustration in Bella's emotions, a hint of irritation from Rosalie, exasperation from Emmett. But nobody's face even cracked the slightest physical hint of those emotions. As if everybody had perfected the art of hiding it…

What had happened to this family since we'd left?

"I'm sorry," Alice said, obviously misinterpreting the tension in the room. "I didn't mean to cause trouble…"

"Alice, go get reacquainted with your Porsche," I whispered into her ear. I wasn't getting into this discussion with my fragile Alice still in the room. She hesitated, clearly figuring out what my scheme was within seconds. "I'm serious," I added, kissing below her ear. "I don't want you here for this conversation, my love."

"Okay," she finally said, twisting around to kiss my cheek. "I'll call when on my way back."

Once she'd left the room, and I'd seen the bright yellow sports car disappear down the drive, I turned back to everybody. "All right, what's really going on?"

"What do you mean?" Bella asked, unconvincingly, shifting over to let Edward stand as he started to pace.

I sighed. "All right, you might fool Alice. You might even fool each other. You're not fooling me. What's going on here?"

"Carlisle and I have reached an impasse," Edward said tightly.

"It's _stupid_, is what it is," Emmett exclaimed. "Neither of them will talk to anybody else about it and they definitely won't talk to each other."

"I don't know how anybody expects to accomplish _anything_ in this family by keeping secrets from everybody else," Rosalie agreed tersely.

"Maybe because you don't want to know what I know," Edward replied.

"Edward, _please_," Esme said quietly, a begging tone in her voice as another stab of emotional pain hit me. "Don't start this now."

"I'm sorry, Esme, but I'd like to know," I apologized, as I turned to Edward. _I'm not bringing her back here if it's like this all the time._

"You're really going to?" Edward asked, surprise in his mood as he straightened up suddenly. "I thought –"

_Don't you dare say it in front of Esme_, I warned him sharply.

"But wasn't it –"

_Yes, it was both our decisions at the time. If it was up to Alice, she wouldn't come back. She _says_ she's happy…_

"Then why?" He was confused now. Not understanding why it was _me_ wanting to come back, and not her.

"You two _do_ remember that I hate one-sided conversations, right?" Emmett spoke up pointedly.

"Deal with it," both Edward and I said in unison.

_She says she's happy because she knows that this was what _I_ wanted. But she misses you. All of you._

"Okay, that's _not_ a good reason," Edward objected. "And so you want to, what, go back to the way it was before? No. No."

There was a startled, hopeful gasp from Esme as her head snapped up and her eyes locked on me, fervent hope exuding from her. Bella looked up slowly from where she'd been studying her hands intently, focusing her thoughtful gaze on us. Rosalie frowned as she turned to me, Emmett not far behind her.

"Oh, Jasper, are you really?" Esme asked, a smile breaking onto her face.

Great. Now I couldn't back out, not when Esme was so excited. "Yes, Esme, we are," I said finally, smiling back at her as she reached out and hugged me tightly. "Not right away," I cautioned her. I wouldn't do that to Alice, not today. Not after she'd stressed so much over a simple visit. When Esme's face fell slightly, I added quickly, "But soon."

Esme merely squealed happily and kissed my cheek.

"Can I speak with you outside?" Edward asked in astonishment.

"No, you can't," Bella interrupted my reply, glaring at him. "You're just going to try and undermine him and make him change his mind."

"No, I just don't understand," Edward contradicted with a frown in my direction.

Sighing, I pulled out moments of the last ten years for him. _She's not happy. She's getting worse, not better. This isn't about me._

"And you think –"

"You're right, let's take this outside," I interrupted him.

"Jasper, don't encourage his insanity," Rosalie said darkly.

*~*~*

We had barely gotten outside hearing range before Edward was demanding, "What the hell are you thinking?"

"Funny, I would think that you of all people would know that," I commented mildly, hearing the sounds of a car turning into the driveway down the road. Alice? Or Carlisle? Or somebody else entirely – I hadn't seen any of the wolves since we had arrived, and I hadn't smelled them either.

"You hated every second you spent here," Edward hissed, lowering his voice abruptly as I caught sight of the others watching from the front entrance.

"Not every second," I disagreed. "And I wouldn't say 'hate'. It wasn't my first choice of living conditions, I'll grant you that. But ten years is a long time to think about something, Edward. It's not going to be like it was before this time." I sighed. "I've gotten my priorities straightened out." Closing my eyes, I thought back to the first time I'd begun to think of this…

_We had just moved into the Manhattan house. Alice was in a good mood because a new house meant more shopping to do, and because nothing had happened quite yet to make her melancholy. But I knew it wouldn't take long. It was happening more and more often as time went on._

_And true to form, Alice had frozen over her plans barely half an hour later. "Jazz…" she called, even though I was already at her side, easing her out of her chair._

"_It's okay, Lissy…" I soothed as she curved into my arms, burying her head into my chest with a whimper. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I've never gone away…"_

_She took a deep breath and distanced herself after a few minutes. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me," she said shakily._

_I did. She had remembered that this was what she'd always done with Esme. And the memory of leaving Esme had made the memory of Carlisle's abandonment resurface._

_She was still upset late that night when we were turning out lights, preparing to keep up the human charade of sleep to the outside world._

Edward frowned as he looked at me. "Has she really been that bad, Jasper?" he asked softly.

"Worse, as of late," I said with a nod. "Her visions have started to fade. She's starting to see things, hear things. I'm beginning to think I can't leave her alone even for a few hours for fear of what I'm going to find when I come home…"

"But that doesn't make any sense," Edward murmured with a frown.

"What in our world does?" I asked ironically, seeing the black Mercedes slowing behind Edward. "Where are the wolves, anyway?"

"Not sure about Leah, to tell you the honest truth. I think she might be back in La Push now. They left about a year after you guys did," Edward sighed. "Jacob kept tagging along behind Bella and Nessie and I once we'd left. He and Nessie are living in Santa Fe right now, taking full advantage of the fact that they have no daylight restrictions." He rolled his eyes.

"Is that really safe?" I asked.

"Well, she _is_ full-grown, I can't really _stop_ her," Edward sighed with a shrug. "Esme frets, but you know Esme. She's never happy unless she's fretting over _somebody_." Then he returned to the original topic. "But what makes you think bringing her back will help?"

I sighed. "I personally think she just needs to –" I stopped when Carlisle got out of the car, frowning in my direction. _I think she just needs to scream at him and get it over with. Bottling it up is definitely not helping. Besides, she misses everybody else._

"Carlisle," Edward said without turning around, "would you mind not eavesdropping? This is a private conversation, it doesn't concern you." His voice held an uncharacteristically terse, clipped coolness to it.

Carlisle didn't say a word, but he did go into the house, letting Esme kiss his cheek briefly.

"And what happened with you and him?" I asked.

"I assume Alice told you what he did," he started to say.

"Yes, she did."

"I know why," he said simply.


	3. Pieces of Broken Porcelain

A/N: Okay, so I was walking to work one morning, and I _totally_ saw Jasper's car (or the present-day version, anyway – his car in the prologue is a Cadillac XLR Special Platinum, which is based on the current Cadillac XLR Platinum) sitting at the entrance to one of the car dealerships next to my workplace! Same colour and everything – might've even had the same interior as I picked off the 'Build-a-Caddy' or whatever that tool was. I was like, 'Yikes! It's Jasper's car!' and I squealed. And then people looked at me like I was weird.

Anyway, going on to the story…

**Chapter 2: Pieces of Broken Porcelain**

"Your little scheme isn't going to work," Alice said bluntly as she slid into the passenger seat of my car, the moon still glistening above us.

"What scheme?" I asked casually, nodding slightly in Edward's direction as he and Bella were pulling out of the driveway ahead of us. "I never scheme, darling, you know that. Did you have a good run around the state with your Porsche?"

"Still runs like a dream," she sighed happily. "But don't change the subject. You are _so_ scheming, Jasper Whitlock, and it's going to fail miserably."

"Alice, Alice, Alice…" I sighed patiently. "Apple of my eye, love of my life, reason of my existence, what makes you think that I'm scheming anything? I do not hide things from you. I decide it and I tell you, even though you already know. And you _know_ that." I waited for a second.

"We are _not_ moving back," Alice said fiercely, glaring at me. "No matter what you threaten to do or how many well-reasoned arguments you throw at me. I am _not_ going back there, and you can't make me."

"Oh, I think that might be up for discussion," I replied with a grin, looking over at her blank face as she deciphered the latest vision. "Now, answer honestly, Lissy. Do you really want to lose that?"

"That was cruel," Alice growled. "You don't threaten the people you love with things like that, Jasper." Crossing her arms with a huff of discontent, she turned her face away from me childishly when I leaned over to kiss her.

"Oh, come on, Alice, don't be like that," I teased.

*~*~*

She was still miffed when we got back to Manhattan, still giving me the cold shoulder as though she was 12 years old. She would whirl around and glare at me every time I tried to subtly influence her emotions.

"Jasper!" she shrieked when I pounced on her mere seconds after closing the front door, fighting futilely against my tight embrace. "Let me go!"

"Oh, there's no use in fighting, my love," I laughed, placing my lips against her neck. "I _will_ have my way."

"Don't make me scream, Jasper Whitlock," she threatened, jerking her head away as she struck my arm again. "You will have a fun time at the police station tonight if I do."

"Oh, I fully intend to make you scream tonight, Alice Whitlock," I teased, landing a kiss on her neck.

I felt her sharp intake of breath before I saw her lips move, and I took the opportunity. Pulling her over to the couch quickly, I managed to cover her mouth with my own just as the scream escaped. "Now, now, Alice, you don't honestly want me to go to jail tonight…" I whispered against her lips, taking special care to be very precise in my romantic decisions. Though her vision had begun to fade in many areas, my future – _our_ future – hadn't been any of them.

"Yes," Alice grumbled petulantly, just as the first of my carefully manipulated visions hit her.

"Are you sure?" I asked again, beginning to undo the buttons on her shirt. "Do you _really_ to be alone?" I couldn't help but grin as she groaned and sighed dramatically, her lower lip still sticking out the slightest bit. Catching it between my teeth gently, I began working on her jeans next as she moaned instinctively and tried to free her lips to kiss me again. The irritation was quickly dissolving into need, and it became stronger, laced with the familiar love.

"Jasper, please…" she whispered, before I kissed her again.

"Just trust me, Lissy," I murmured.

Her eyes met mine for the briefest moment before she replied softly, "I do."

*~*~*

She had nestled deep into my arms hours ago, emotionally overwrought as she laid her head on my chest comfortably.

"Can… can we at least call it a trial run?" she asked softly.

"We can call it whatever you'd like, darling," I murmured. "We're just going to try. That's all. Just try."

Her next words were interrupted by a knock at the door, and I looked down at her, surprised. She hadn't reacted, if she had even seen the person coming. "Alice, who's there?" I asked, sitting up slowly as I reached for my shirt.

She merely shrugged, resettling down on the couch beneath a blanket. Her eyes were slowly going dull, and it scared me to no end: it was as though she couldn't really be _alive_ unless I was right there, within reach. And much as I loved her, more than life itself, I couldn't be there 24/7.

Yeah. She had to go back. I had seen ghosts of the old Alice, the Alice I had fallen in love with in 1948, yesterday in Lansing. I wanted _that_ Alice back.

Sighing, I laid one last kiss on her forehead before I went to answer the door.

Standing outside were Edward and Bella. "Hi," Bella said brightly.

"Hello," I replied shortly. I stepped aside to let them into the house, watching as Bella went straight to Alice. "I'm not even going to ask how you found us," I sighed to Edward. He rolled his eyes, tapping his head lightly.

"Nothing is a secret to me."

"Oh, come on, do I have to be the disgustingly-cheerful one now?" Bella asked in exasperation, pulling Alice up from the couch. "Show me your house, or I'm going to kidnap you and take you shopping."

Edward couldn't contain the snort of disbelief. "I'd pay big money to see Bella initiating a shopping trip." The tiniest glimmer of a smile made its way onto my beautiful wife's face as she and Bella disappeared into the basement. "Nice neighbourhood," he added to me.

"Alice's choice this time," I replied. "What are you doing here?"

"Figured if you were being a man about it, I might as well be too," Edward said with a sigh. "Actually, Bella told me that if you guys were going home, we were going home too, and there was no ifs, ands or buts about it. So here I am."

"What, too scared to go home on your own?"

"Actually, Bella wanted us to come with you. She's really, _really_ missed Alice."

I could tell that just from the distant, constant stream of chatter coming from the basement.

Edward sighed again, leaning back against the wall as he said, "Well, this should be fun. Not sure how well it's going to work, having me and Carlisle in the same house for the first time in 9 years… He and I separated on pretty bad terms."

"What exactly is going on?" I asked.

"When you guys left… let's just say Carlisle knew exactly why. He and I had some pretty strong words about it." Edward paused, waiting while Bella and Alice came back to the main level and headed for the second floor. "I mean, when she was getting all those memories back, I could _feel_ everything that she had been feeling at the time… and –" he hesitated, rubbing his forehead. "He destroyed her. When she realized that he wasn't coming back… I've never seen somebody fall into a depression that deep."

I sighed, remembering the deathly silence of her emotions that resurfaced on occasion. The past few years, it had always been worse on moonless, overcast nights when we lived out of town, away from the 24-hour lights of the city. When the world went dark and silent again, and she would bury herself in my arms as if trying to assure herself that there was another person there with her, somebody real and solid.

"Yeah, something like that, except even more acute," Edward murmured. "And then it was like she just stopped feeling entirely. As if she just wanted to disappear. The only thing keeping her alive was that vision of you in the diner. Literally."

Looking over at my (partially) estranged brother, I felt a surge of gratitude hit me. Whether it was mine or his, I wasn't entirely sure. But I knew one thing for certain: we may be been unspoken adversaries last time, but now we would be unspoken comrades.

"Okay," Bella announced as she and Alice returned to us, the sparkle beginning to come back into my wife's eyes. "Here's the deal. We are all going to Saks, and we are all spending ridiculous amounts of your even more ridiculous wealth."

"You _do_ know that it's your ridiculous wealth too?" Edward asked with a crooked smile, laughing as Bella simply grinned at him and hugged Alice again. "Why the sudden urge to shop? Renesmee finally rub off on you?"

"No, because Alice just told me that she hasn't had a major shopping trip in ten years, and that's just horrifying."

I rolled my eyes, reaching out my arm to take Alice back into my hold. "You mean major as in she drops more than two grand in one trip?"

"Don't whine, you need new clothes," Alice told me with a smile.

"I know, I've wore these clothes almost five times now. They're practically ancient," I replied with a straight face, grinning as she laughed and kissed my cheek.

*~*~*

"I'm sorry, I find that to be thievery," I said calmly over the phone. "45% commission on this house is going to be astronomical."

Edward muffled his snort from across the table as he watched me cross another realtor off the list and hang up. "Have you always been this finicky about your real estate?"

"My real estate finances _her_ shopping," I said dryly, dialing again. "I need the most I can get. But seriously, I mean, didn't _you_ think that was ridiculous?"

"45% _was_ a little drastic," Edward admitted, just as somebody picked up on the other end of the line.

"Hello, I'm calling with some questions regarding the sale of my home in Manhattan. Do you have a specialist for the area?" I threw a spare pen at Edward as he tried to grab my notepad from me to read.

"Are you two playing nice in here?" Alice asked as she and Bella entered the kitchen. "Who're you on the phone with now?"

"Why don't you believe that Jasper and I can be in the same room without tearing each other's throats out?" Edward asked in mock hurt as the girls joined us.

"Because you usually can't," Bella replied cheerfully, taking a seat next to him. "So? What are you pondering in such deep thought?"

"Real estate prices and outlandish realtor commissions," I replied as the woman I assumed to be the receptionist transferred me. "Did you know that the last one wanted 45% of the sale?"

"Mmm, don't go with any more than 15%," Alice said, resting her head against my shoulder. "I want to go to Milan."

"You've already been to Italy," I replied.

"And stolen flashy sports cars there," Edward added with a grin.

"Volterra hardly counts," Alice said dismissively.

"It's sunny in Italy. All the time," I tried, still listening to the hold music.

"Not at night, when the fashion shows start."

*~*~*

I think Edward and Bella first realized just how broken Alice had become when she snapped the pencil she was using for her sketches.

"Sorry, held it a little too tightly," she had said quickly, looking up and then back down again. Sighing, I passed her another one, kissing the curve of her neck furtively as she settled in against my side just a little closer.

Edward glanced over at me questioningly. I shook my head slightly, keeping my arm securely around Alice's waist as I leaned back over, murmuring in her ear, "What are you drawing?"

She paused for a second, looking behind her. "I would've thought that would be obvious, Jazz," she said with a slight smile. "Are you telling me you don't recognize it?"

I studied the sketch in front of me. Not to sound vain, but I knew it was me in the sketch – there no mistaking that. But I couldn't quite place why the picture looked familiar…

Alice returned her attention to the drawing, tracing the outline of an old-fashioned clock on the far wall. Once her pencil tip had been hovering over the undecided clock's hands for a few minutes, it hit me. It was the day we'd first met. The diner in Philadelphia.

"It was 11:36," I said softly, kissing her cheek.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "And I had the time and everything on the original…" she muttered darkly, ignoring Edward's thoughtful expression as he watched her. "Would've been a lot of help if I'd had that."

"For what?"

"To know exactly _when_ you were coming. I was about to leave before the waitress got any more suspicious of me. I'd been there since before her shift had started, and it was my third day in a row."

I couldn't stop the laugh that escaped. "So why are you drawing this again?"

She paused for a second.

Edward's voice echoed in my head right at that moment._ "The only thing keeping her alive was that vision of you in the diner. Literally."_

Then finally she said softly, "Because it reminds me that my human life wasn't entirely crappy. It had its moments."

"Like?" Bella asked curiously, ignoring Edward's elbow digging into her side.

Alice thought for a moment, then she replied, "When I was living in the low-security wing, the nurses use to bring me presents. They would always sneak in a bag of those little penny candies every week –"

"I remember those," Edward said immediately. "My parents used to buy a few of those for me every Christmas. Lucky," he added jealously.

Alice smiled at him as she set aside her drawing things and threaded her fingers between mine, resting her head back against my shoulder. "They kept them up at the nurses' station. If one of the other patients caught them giving me one, they would tell them it was my medicine." She laughed lightly. "The doctors didn't really like that, but the nurses did it anyway."

*~*~*

Edward and Bella stayed in Manhattan with us for close to two weeks while I was busy arranging for the sale of the house. And every day, I became more and more certain that I was making the right decision: even with just Edward and Bella there, Alice was smiling more. She wasn't having as many 'emotional blackouts', as I'd taken to calling them. She wasn't quite as… I didn't want to say 'clingy', but not as concerned with making sure that I was within eyesight as she used to be.

The day we were planning on leaving for Lansing, Jacob and Nessie showed up on the doorstep, announcing that they were coming too. Well, Bella and Alice nearly had kittens with delight, and immediately, Nessie and Alice had plotted one last (doubtlessly expensive) rampage of New York City's shopping district.

Poor Jacob was stuck accompanying them, though he begged on hands and knees to come with Edward and I down to the realtor's office for the last few mountains of paperwork.

"Somebody needs to go with them and make sure that it doesn't get out of hand," Edward said with a laugh. "Make sure they don't end up emptying the city. We only have three cars, and not a lot of trunk space."

"So why don't _you_ go?" Jacob muttered rebelliously, as Nessie laughed and kissed his cheek affectionately before she picked up her purse.

*~*~*

"Thanks for doing this," I said with a sigh as Edward and I headed back to the house to pick up Bella and Alice. "Really. I wasn't looking forward to trying to do everything myself. It's nice to have somebody here to –"

"Distract Alice?" Edward finished knowingly. "Must be nice to just get away from her for a little while."

"I love her to death and beyond, but she takes a lot of energy these days," I agreed. "It's a good thing I don't need sleep."

"I don't think I've ever realized how much she hates being alone," Edward murmured.

"That's because she's never _been_ alone since you've known her," I replied. "Somebody's always been with her."

"Do you think she even realizes why?" he asked after a few seconds.

I shrugged slightly. "I think it makes her feel like she's back in that cell, with no light and no sound, nobody with her. Nobody caring about her. Sometimes I think she's always remembered that feeling, subconsciously." I paused, thinking the next part as we began to approach the house, Jacob and Nessie idling in the street with Bella and Alice both perched on the trunk, waiting. _It's why she likes being with the family so much. It's virtually impossible to be alone._

"I think you're right. About everything," Edward said as he jumped out of the car, delivering a quick kiss to Alice's cheek before he returned to his own car with Bella. "So, are we going all the way in one stretch?"

"Hey, listen, some of us still need to _sleep_!" Jacob called. "And we've already driven from New Mexico to New York today."

"Actually, Esme's heart might just start beating again if we all show up at once," Bella objected with a smile. "Maybe we should spread it out a little?"

"Road trip!" Jacob crowed. Nessie rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm.

"Well, since she's _actually_ expecting us, we should probably go back in one stretch," I said. Stopping as the thirst began to burn in the back of my throat again, I amended, "Two days. We're going to need to hunt partway through."

"Same here," Edward agreed. "We'll arrive a few days later, then. And I guess Jacob and Renesmee will show up when Jacob gets tired of driving around aimlessly."

"Sounds good. See you in a few days, then."


	4. Seduction and Manipulation

**_Chapter 3: Seduction and Manipulation_**

Alice was silent for most of the trip, watching the landscape whip by as I drove down the interstate at recklessly dangerous speeds.

Finally, I couldn't handle it anymore and I pulled over to a secluded area.

"What are you doing?" Alice asked questioningly as she turned to look at me. A smile split her face just then as I jumped over the console easily and slid her hips between my legs. "Oh. Well, by all means, keep going," she continued, tilting her head to the side for me as I ducked down to kiss her neck.

"Would you stop hating me?" I murmured into her skin.

"What are you talking about?" she asked unconvincingly, straightening up to look at me. Or maybe it was only unconvincing to me, because I could sense her emotions. "My feelings for you are about as far from hate as it's possible to get."

"You're hating me," I persisted. "I can sense it, Alice. You don't like me right now."

"That's a whole different subject than hate, Jasper," she said with a roll of her eyes. "And yes, I'm not particularly pleased with you right now. Would you just go back to seducing me and forget about it?" Expectantly, she exposed her neck again for me.

Sighing, I returned to the driver's seat and threw the car in drive again. There was no use in arguing with her now. I shouldn't have gotten her attention like that – now she was going to sit there and stew for hours because I hadn't carried through.

"Jasper, seriously!" She had yanked my hand from the gearshift and thrown it back into park before I'd even realized she was reaching for it. "Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want me to do."

Wincing as I hoped to hell that she hadn't killed my car, I said quietly, "I want you to be happy, Alice. I want you to be honestly, truly happy."

"I _am_ honestly, truly happy," Alice protested. "Come back over here, would you?" she demanded, pulling at my arm.

"No, you're not, Alice," I replied as I returned to her side of the car, in tight control of my hormones until we had gotten finished with this conversation. "You're _trying_ at happy."

"Jasper, I am honestly, truly happy with you," she repeated, pulling my face down towards her. As her lips brushed lightly against mine, I nearly lost hold on my self-control, hungrily taking the slow burn of lust and passion she was carefully feeding me. "Really…"

_Talk, then sex. Talk, then sex. Because there will be no talking after sex, you will have caved to her every misguided demand, and you will be on your way somewhere in the opposite direction of Lansing…_

My frantic mantra wasn't doing much to help me, though.

"Why do we need more?" she whispered, trailing her kisses across my cheek. "Why isn't this enough for you?"

_Oh, God, don't use my own words against me, that's so far below the belt it's not even on the human body…_

_Talk, then sex. Talk, then sex. Talk, then sex…_

"It's enough for _me_, Alice," I managed to say. "It's not enough for _you_."

"Yes, it is," she insisted, returning to my mouth. "You're all I want…"

_But you _need_ more than just me… Talk, then sex. Talk, then sex…_ God, I was glad Edward wasn't around to hear this.

"Alice, stop undermining me." With much difficulty and great pain (I swear, I could hear my hormones screaming _'No, no, listen to her, she talks sense!'_), I pulled away, flinching when I felt the sting of rejection hit me.

"Jasper," she growled in frustration. "Don't torment me like this." As if to push me over the edge of all reason (and she knew very well how to do that), she upped the concentration of desire, fixing her most pleading gaze on me. "Please…"

And I was lost. Moaning as I returned to her, I gave up all hope of holding out. Why had I even thought about it in the first place – of course she was happy, why wouldn't she be, and of course there was no question of us going to Lansing, Canada was next on our list, we hadn't been to Victoria in years…

A smug little smile of triumph broke onto her face as she swiftly unbuttoned my shirt. "See? I knew you'd come to your senses…" she breathed. "Isn't this much better? Isn't this what you wanted all along?"

My cell phone rang right then, bringing a metaphorical breath of fresh air into my overloaded senses. _Must answer phone, must answer phone…_

"Don't answer it," Alice whispered into my ear. "You don't want to answer it." Her fingers were threading my belt through my jeans, undoing the button… "_Jasper_…" she growled warningly as I reached into my pocket slowly, almost as if in a daze.

_Must answer phone…_

Snarling in frustration, Alice abruptly stopped her quest to unclothe me and sat back in her seat, arms crossed and a pout on her face. "If you answer that phone, Jasper…" she threatened.

"You know I love you, Lissy," I said with a brief kiss to her cheek before I flipped the cell phone open. "Yeah?"

"_Oh, wow, you actually answered," _came Edward's surprised voice. _"I thought for sure Alice would have you deep within her manipulative clutches by now."_

"I was on my way there," I answered darkly.

"_I thought you might need some incentive to keep to your original plans, so I told Esme that you're arriving by four this afternoon."_

Deadline. Deadlines were good. Deadlines keep people on track. Deadlines keep people like me from getting hopelessly sidetracked and their plans all twisted around by their manipulative, cunning, seductive wives… God, but being manipulated felt so good…

"Thank you," I said uneasily, as Alice continued to glare at my phone rebelliously. She must've known Edward had called Esme – that would explain her sudden desire to keep me from answering my phone.

"_Was it really that bad?"_ Edward asked with a laugh.

"Yeah," I admitted. "I was going to drive to Canada."

Edward's laughter obviously reached Alice's ears, because she snatched the phone away and snarled at him, "Stop messing with his head, Edward!"

I could hear Edward's reply faintly as I returned to kissing her neck hopefully. _"I'm not the one messing with his head, Alice. Least I'm not striking below the belt."_

Alice slammed the phone shut instead of replying, tossed it into the console's cup-holder and snapped, "No. You're not getting anything now."

_Oh, but you're so irresistible when you're irritated…_

"Alice, Alice, Alice…" I chided. "Wasn't this what you wanted all along? Weren't your exact words, 'Would you go back to seducing me and forget about it?'" Easing her shirt off, I pulled her against me, fingers working at the clasps of her bra.

"Don't use my own words against me," she moaned. "That's so far below the belt…"

"Bit rich coming from _you_, my love," I whispered.

"I promise I'll never manipulate you like that again…"

"Oh, you will," I told her. "It's your favourite pastime."

"Enough _talking_ already…" she groaned.

*~*~*

"We should get back on the road."

"Nooo…"

God, why had Edward given Esme a _time_? If he'd just told her _today_, we could've stayed here another few hours…

"Alice, we need to get back on the road."

"Please, can't we can't stay here a little longer?" she pleaded, nestling her body closer to me.

"We have to get back on the road now if we're going to get to Lansing before 4, Lissy."

"_Time_… what's time to an immortal?" Alice grumbled.

"Alice, we don't want to upset Esme."

"_Please_, Jazz?" She started kissing along my jaw again, weaving her fingers through my hair. "I promise I won't kick up a fuss anymore…"

And then, as if I wasn't already an eternal prisoner to her will, she had to start with the emotion-feeding again…

"All right," I ceded. "But you have to promise me that you're not going to argue with me anymore on this. Even if you don't realize it yet, this is the best thing for you."

"Mmm-hmm, for sure," Alice replied distractedly, once more unbuttoning my abused shirt. "Whatever you say, Jazz."

*~*~*

Edward was waiting on the front porch, foot tapping, when I pulled into the driveway. "You know it's 10 at night, right?" he asked disapprovingly. "Esme's about to have a nervous breakdown."

"Sorry," I grumbled, automatically going to open the door for Alice. "She had my sense of direction all snarled up in knots."

"I wasn't arguing, was I?" Alice demanded defensively. "Nor was I kicking up a fuss."

"She had me nearly across the Canadian border before I came to my senses," I muttered. Despite the irritation in his emotions, Edward snickered. "I thought you guys weren't arriving for a few days yet," I said, eager to change the topic from my severe lack of willpower when it came to Alice.

"Bella changed her mind," he said with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

Bella emerged from the house just then, a smile on her face as she joined us. "Alice, come see what Esme did to your room," she enthused, taking Alice by the arm in a manner not unlike how Alice used to do to her. "I don't know _how_ she got it all done in two weeks…"

"Oh, God," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Do I even want to know?"

"It's not bad," Edward assured me as our wives abandoned us – again. "It's androgynous."

"Oh, good," I sighed. "I was getting worried there for a second."

"Was she really trying that hard?" Edward murmured as we began to unload the trunk of the car. "I mean, I know it doesn't take much for her to sway you, but to get to _Canada_?"

"She's very good at wordless manipulation," I replied, listening to the distant laughter of Esme, Rosalie, Alice and Bella through an open window. "She's also very good at hiding things from everybody else," I continued. "She was pretty upset with me when we left. And she's been sniping at me since I turned around in Vermont. You'd never guess it to listen to her right now."

"Aw, she'll forgive you," Edward replied, as Emmett came outside. "I've never seen her hold a grudge longer than 24 hours. Against _you_, anyway. Hey, Em."

"Hey, Emmett," I greeted with a sigh.

"God, did she empty NYC before she left?" Emmett asked in astonishment.

"Remind me to _never_ allow Alice and Renesmee to shop together ever again," Edward and I said darkly in unison. Emmett laughed and grabbed a few of the bags.

"Just make sure Rosalie doesn't start shopping with the two of them – I don't think the family finances can handle that," he replied with a grin.

"Poor Jacob," Edward said with a shake of his head, as we headed inside. "I think they traumatized him."

Bella laughed from the top of the stairs. "Jake has never spent that much in his _life_, let alone in one sitting. Poor guy was practically crying for Renesmee to give him the cards."

"You'd think he'd be used to it by now," Rosalie said with a laugh. "We like to shop in this family."

No sooner had Rosalie finished speaking than did I nearly get knocked off my feet by Esme.

"Hello, Esme," I greeted obligingly, returning her tight hug.

"I was starting to worry," she fussed, stroking my cheek lightly as she released me rather reluctantly. "Edward said you guys were supposed to arrive early this afternoon, and when you still hadn't gotten here by sunset…"

"I'm sorry, Esme, I didn't realize Edward had called you," I lied perfectly, ignoring Edward's frown in my direction.

"It's my fault, Esme," Alice apologized, joining us downstairs as she settled into my side. "I was distracting him. Jasper really doesn't drive well distracted."

There was a muffled guffaw from Emmett in the living room, some sort of sports game playing in the background. "I'm pretty sure driving while intoxicated is still illegal in all states, Ally."

"If you read the laws carefully, it only covers driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol," Alice replied delicately, even as I glowered in Emmett's general direction.

Esme laughed as she pulled Alice into another tight hug. "And so, Alice? How do you like your room?"

"Oh, Esme, it's perfect," she sighed happily. "Jasper, come see," she added, gleefully seizing my hand.

"Okay, okay," I replied, allowing her to pull me upstairs and into the room.

Edward was right, Esme had taken great care to make it accessible to both of us. There wasn't enough empty space in the house to devote an area to each individual person like she had in the old houses – I hadn't minded the bedroom being more to Alice's tastes, because I'd always had my small corner study for myself. This house was quite a bit smaller than the ones I remembered from earlier years – but I supposed that keeping those enormous houses just reminded them of the family's absence. They didn't need an oversized mansion for just the four people who had been left. Clearly, Esme had still held out some small vestige of hope that we would all come back, because the house had retained two empty rooms. The other one, I suspected, had been converted into Edward and Bella's room.

I had only just begun to look around the room, noticing with a certain amount of suppressed glee the compact study-like area in the corner, when I heard the familiar sound of Alice's distressed moan.

Immediately, all of my attention was back on her. "Lissy, Lissy, talk to me," I said anxiously, leading her to the bed before she collapsed on the floor. "What's wrong? What is it?"

She shook her head, curling up in my arms.

Edward showed up in the doorway, concern on his face. "Carlisle's home," he explained quietly, watching Alice.

I felt her flinch in my arms.


	5. Clean

**_Chapter 4: Clean_**

"Lissy, baby, calm down…" I soothed gently, rubbing her back. "It's okay… it's okay…"

I could hear Carlisle downstairs, greeting Bella with a certain degree of cheer – obviously he didn't recognize my car, he seemed to think it was Edward and Bella's. Had nobody told him that we were coming back? Had he not _noticed_ that Esme was remodeling two rooms, not one?

"_Listen, the forecast is calling for thunderstorms over the city tonight,"_ Carlisle was saying. _"I was thinking that since we have a half-decent amount of people in the house now, maybe we could go try a game of ball outside city limits. Emmett, what do you think?"_

"_Yeah, I'm good with that,"_ Emmett laughed in return. _"You might want to check with Alice, though, make sure the forecast is accurate."_

"Damn it, Emmett," Edward hissed in frustration as Carlisle fell silent below us and Alice buried herself deeper in my arms.

"_Alice and Jasper are back?"_

"_Yeah, they just got here. They're upstairs in their room."_

"Close the door behind you, please," I requested quietly, looking up as Edward started to leave. "And lock it."

Nodding, Edward did it and I returned my attention to my trembling love. Now that we finally had (almost) total privacy, I pulled her securely underneath me, leaning down to kiss her hungrily.

"Jazz…" she whispered desperately. "Don't leave me."

"I'm not leaving you, Alice, never," I promised softly.

"No, I mean now," she corrected. "I want to talk to C… to him. I want to talk to him." Slowly, she eased her way out of my arms, getting to her feet to go unlock the door as Carlisle's soft voice sounded out in the hallway.

"_Alice?"_ His voice was soft, uncertain.

"Alice, love, are you sure you're ready for this?" I asked worriedly, sitting up.

"_Alice, please…"_

"Don't leave me," Alice repeated pleadingly just before she unlocked the door, opened it a crack and fairly flew back into my arms.

"I've got you, I've got you," I soothed uselessly, as the door swung open slowly to reveal Carlisle – still in his white lab coat, face barely hiding the fear and a demeanor of uncertainty. He seemed emotionally exhausted. "Hello," I greeted shortly, stroking Alice's hair gently.

"Hello, Jasper," Carlisle replied softly. "Alice?"

My first small hint of the rage she had been suppressing unknowingly for the better part of a century began to make itself known as she looked up at him from my arms, anger and betrayal in her eyes. "Yes?" she asked shortly.

"Alice, I…" he trailed off, taking a deep breath and repeating himself. "Alice, I'm sorry."

She flew out of my arms with an angry screech, making both Carlisle and I jump in surprise. "You're _sorry_?!" she shrieked. "Sorry doesn't even _begin_ to cover it!!"

"Whoa, Alice!" I exclaimed, jumping at her as she made a move as though to attack Carlisle. Wrapping my arms around her waist tightly, I struggled to hold her in. "Alice, calm down."

"_Do you have ANY idea what they did to me in there_?!" Alice shrieked again.

"Alice…" Carlisle started to say helplessly.

"No!" she screamed furiously, still fighting against my grip. "I _trusted_ you!"

Those three words made Carlisle flinch, his eyes focusing on the ground rather than on Alice. As I pulled Alice back to the bed, holding her tightly against me, I repeated softly, "Alice, calm down."

Esme had come upstairs, her fright clear. With her hand sliding slowly into Carlisle's, she looked over at me questioningly. But Alice wasn't anywhere near done with him.

"You _promised_ you wouldn't leave me there long!" she spat out. "You _swore_ that you would come back for me! And you _never did_."

"Alice," Carlisle tried again. "I wanted to, really. I nearly turned around and went back. But –"

"Nearly means _nothing_!" she screeched. "You _left_ me there to be beaten, and tortured, and starved and –"

"Alice, _please_ just listen to me," Carlisle begged.

"_You don't have a clue what it was like_!" She was out of control now, fighting tooth and nail to free herself. "I was _counting_ on you to get me out of there!"

"Alice, Alice, listen to me," I said urgently, breathing the words into her ear. "Calm down. Remember Pennsylvania? Remember how perfect it was? Think about that. Don't think about Mississippi anymore tonight. Think about Pennsylvania."

I felt her rage begin to ebb somewhat, being replaced with shaky happiness as she turned to bury her face into my sweater. Tightening my arms around her, I looked at Carlisle. "Leave her alone," I said coldly. "You've done enough damage."

Esme looked from Carlisle to me, blatant terror infiltrating my senses. "What's going on?" she asked warily. "Jasper, Carlisle, what are you talking about?"

"Hey, so are we playing ball or what?" Emmett demanded in a forced casual tone, as if anybody in a fifty-mile radius _hadn't_ just heard Alice's explosive rage. "Allie?"

Alice took a deep, shaky breath and looked around at him. "Yeah, tonight's going to be a good night for baseball," she replied quietly, eyes carefully focused on Emmett and _not_ on Carlisle. "Did you want to play?"

"Hell, yeah," Emmett said with a grin. "Jeep's already packed. C'mon, let's go." He held out his arm cheerfully to her, his naturally buoyant disposition rubbing off on Alice as I felt her slowly cheer up. "Blondes versus brunettes sound good?"

"Hey, no fair weighting your side," Rosalie protested, showing up beside him. "You know Alice is going to make sure she distracts Jasper –"

"– and you know Jasper's going to distract her in return, so we're even," Emmett said logically. "Besides, that's why we have Esme."

Alice laughed, and I couldn't stop the smile from escaping as she went up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek lightly, whispering into my ear, "I win."

"We'll see," I replied teasingly.

"I have. We win by a landslide – you're _very_ distracted tonight."

*~*~*

"Jasper, sabotage them already!" Rosalie hissed at me as Alice began to slide into home, flashing an angelic smile back in my direction. "Emmett is unbearable when he wins."

"He's unbearable when he loses, too," I pointed out, managing to hit Alice with a flood of _very _distracting images just as she hit me with a flood of paralyzing lust. Rosalie dove for the ball desperately when Alice slowed, pausing to watch the visions. Laughing with triumph, my sister snagged the ball and hurled it back towards Carlisle just as Alice returned to the present and retook her dash.

Bella frowned in contemplation.

"Penalty to both teams!" Esme called. "Jasper, Alice, you know better!"

Alice glowered at me with a dark pout, sending a wave of vindictive decisiveness. I would be paying for the night of distractions later, I was sure. But that was okay: I'd make her pay too. That was so many degrees of wrong, to torment me with that level of lust in hopes of winning a stupid baseball game, when she knew perfectly well that if we hadn't been accompanied by the others, if we'd been alone, that would've made me tackle her to the ground in desperation.

As she paused for a moment, her face smoothing into a familiar expression, Rosalie and I came running in from the field to bat. Then Alice sighed in resignation, opening her eyes. "Never mind. Storm's ending in a minute. Game over."

"Then that means… Emmett, Edward and Alice won," Bella announced, laughing as my brothers let out whoops of victory and Rosalie groaned.

"I told you," Alice said in satisfaction. "Does that mean I get my prize now?" she asked impishly.

"It means I get to have a good, long discussion with you about your tactics," I growled good-naturedly, pulling her in close despite the way her body tensed. "It's somewhat unresolved…"

She seemed happy now, back to normal. So long as she didn't look at or speak to Carlisle, basically pretending that he didn't exist, she seemed content.

"You guys coming?" Emmett called across the field, leaning out of his window in the Jeep.

"We going back with everybody else?" I asked softly, just as she sighed and distanced herself from me.

"We really should…" she admitted ruefully. "We're just going to scare Esme if we don't."

"Okay," I said easily.

She paused, looking at me in surprise. "You're not arguing?"

"I believe 'okay' is a word of assent, not dissent," I agreed.

"But you always argue against going back right away after a game," she said quizzically. "You always want to stay out."

"Next time, then," I said.

Head tilting to the side, Alice studied me for a moment, a frown of confusion on her face. "Who are you and what have you done with Jasper Whitlock?"

"Never left your side, sweetheart," I replied, trying to brush a light kiss against her dirt-scuffed nose, but failing due to her head's last-minute duck. "Come on, or Emmett is going to leave us behind and we _are_ going to end up out here alone."

"How do you know that's not my plan?" Alice asked with a smile.

"Maybe it is," I agreed, "but what's existence without a little conflict?"

"Much easier," she murmured. "Besides, I have a bone to pick with you. You ripped my Leyla jacket in that fantasy of yours."

"Still in one piece, is it not?" I replied, toying insolently with the hem of the jacket. "Although maybe not for long."

"_Are you coming or not?!"_ Emmett howled.

"No jackets will come to harm tonight," I promised Alice, before I pulled her back to the Jeep.

*~*~*

We were in the family study, the familiar silence that came with the middle of the night penetrating the house. Somebody had expanded their reading tastes in the last ten years, and I'd found a particularly fascinating novel the size of the _In the Realms of the Unreal_ series. A quick search of the bookshelf told me I had a good fifteen volumes at roughly 1000 pages each. I had no intentions of moving for the next 24 hours.

Alice had nestled herself in behind me on the couch, allowing me to lean back against her, and was currently brushing out my wet hair. Emmett and I had gotten a little competitive during the game, and we'd both been relatively dirty when we arrived home. That, of course, to both our lovely wives and our ferociously meticulous mother, meant an immediate shower for the both of us. And then Alice had insisted on showering before she joined me…

Sighing, I opened the first volume and began to read. Alice continued her careful, gentle inspection of my scalp – obviously trying to find some reason to drag me back to the shower and rewash my hair. She preferred doing it herself, insisting that I was too 'manly' and 'military' to do it properly. My earthbound angel was particular about cleanliness, she always had been and it had only gotten worse when her memories had come back. I'd had no idea why she was so fussy before, but I was willing to give in, willing to let her have her harmless obsession, even though it often meant I had to wait agonizing hours before she would let me touch her.

But now… now I had my suspicions. Obviously something had happened to her in that prison they called a hospital, and it had resulted in this rigid adherence to a standard of cleanliness even modern-day hospitals didn't adhere to. She seemed to tolerate the… 'substandard' quality well enough with the others, but it drove her anxiety through the roof if it were me or her.

Hair was the worst for her. With so many places for dirt, mud, dust among a myriad of other things to hide, it could easily take her hours to finish looking me over. Over the years, I'd learnt exactly how to wash out my hair to her standards. She'd calmed down, relaxed a little recently. But now, back with the family, the stress seemed to have brought it back full-force. "You're not going to find anything," I murmured softly.

"I know," she replied simply. "It makes me feel better, though. Tilt your head to the left, please."

"Alice…"

"Please?"

Sighing again, I moved my head in the direction requested, rearranging my book. "You've never told me why you get so anxious about dirt," I said quietly.

Alice kept combing through my hair lightly, silence for a long while. I could sense somebody at the door, though their mood told me that they were trying not to be noticed. Alice obviously was either paying no attention or hadn't noticed the audience. "At the hospital," she finally said softly, "when I first arrived, there was one nurse who worked on my ward. She terrified me. I used to try and hide from her – in cabinets, in wardrobes, in closets. I was in a low-security ward back then, so the doors weren't locked and sometimes I would try going to one of the other wards, if I knew that one of my favourite nurses – the young ones, the kind ones – was working there that day. Once, I even tried hiding in the laundry cart. Nobody realized that I was in there, and I got dumped into the wash water. It was scalding. Doctor Garrity was treating my burns for hours…"

She stopped at that point, her focus intense on the part she was making in my hair. I felt her rest her cheek against the cleared portion of my head, her hands trembling slightly. I closed my book, aching to turn around and hold her, but I kept still, waiting for permission to move. "Nurse Eleanor. That was her name. She would get so angry at me… She was never as hard on the other patients, the adults. I think maybe she just… didn't like children. Or maybe just because I was so much more… sane than the others. But she used to hold me to the same standards that somebody would hold an adult to. I never came fast enough when she called, I didn't make my bed well enough, I couldn't give her the right answers when she asked me something, because she would phrase her words like she was speaking to an adult and I didn't understand what she was asking. And I could never, _never_ make myself clean enough for her. I would scrub at my skin so hard it would break, and I would wash my hair so many times it began to fall out, and I would go through an entire bar of soap in a single bath, and she _always_ found something I'd missed."

She returned to her inspection furiously, and I managed to bite back the wince as she pulled my hair harder than normal. "And then she would call me a dirty little animal and a wasteful little ingrate – because I'd gone through an entire bar of soap, you see, and I was still dirty."

I hissed in immediate insult. If that beast hadn't already been dead for decades, she would have been very shortly.

"Jasper, stay _still_," she ordered shortly. There was silence for a while as she finished with the left side of my head. "Right side, please," she said simply. Without protest, I turned my head. "Every time she found so much as a speck of dirt, she would hit me. The bigger the speck, the harder she hit."

I recognized the sensation of her hands freezing in my hair. Damn – had I actually missed a spot?

Sighing, I sat up. "All right, let's go," I said resignedly.

"I'm sorry," she begged. Our silent audience had disappeared just before she turned around and pulled me back to the bathroom.

It didn't take long for her to fill the tub and undress us both. I didn't fight her – she was stressed out enough without arguing with me.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, kissing me softly before she combed through the affected part of my hair.

"Don't ever apologize to me for something like this," I said fiercely, pulling her hands away from my head for a moment. "Darling, it is _not_ your fault, and I will spend the rest of eternity proving to you that you are just as desirable to me with a speck of dirt on you as you are when you are perfectly clean by your crazy, inhuman standards…"

Ducking in to kiss her, I stopped when she froze again. "What?" I asked.

"I promise… when I'm done," she whispered shakily, shame piercing her voice. "Just… _please_?"

I sighed and released her hands. "Okay. But one day I'm not going to let you do this, and I'm going to show you that the world will not fall down if it doesn't happen."


End file.
